Team Chocolate by Filip Lenaerts and Marc Bryssinck

Jasper Vloemans is a young man with Down syndrome. Seeking independence from his family, he applies for a job at Tytgat Chocolate, a truffle manufacturing company that employs young people with learning difficulties in the packing room. Before long, he falls in love with his co-worker Tina, a girl from Kosovo. When Tina is being suddenly deported back to her home country, Jasper and his friends set out on a road trip to find her.

First broadcast on Belgian television in 2017, Team Chocolate is an award-winning, seven-part Flemish TV drama that proved itself a runaway hit. Comic, romantic, irreverent and inclusive, the series was written and directed by Marc Bryssinck, creative director of Theater Stap, and screenwriter and director Filip Lenaerts.

The main cast, the workers in the chocolate packing team, are played by actors from Theater Stap – a Flanders-based theatre company that works with a fixed ensemble of professional actors with learning difficulties. Joined by a host of renowned Belgian names in lead and cameo roles, the artistic quality of the Stap actors’ performances shines with such authenticity that viewers quickly forget the difference.

A fun and touching show for the whole family, Team Chocolate received the Prix Europa in Berlin for Best TV Fiction Series, the Diversity TV Excellence Award (Fiction Series) at Mipcom in Cannes, and a Special Mention at the Prix Italia.